State Boards of Education, Professional Education Organizations, and Parent Advocacy Groups Defy Actions of the State Superintendent
by Jan Greenhawk, Editor/Writer, Radio Free Oxford
Someone send Mohammad Choudhury a lifejacket. He’s going to need it. He’s been set adrift by the Maryland educational establishment, much like Captain Bligh in the movie “Mutiny on the Bounty” starring Clark Gable and Charles Loughton, made in 1935.
If you have never seen the movie, you can find it somewhere, I’m sure. The movie is based on a true story of the mutiny of a crew against their dictatorial, cruel captain, Captain Bligh. The crew, led by the first mate, Mr. Christian, take over the ship and put Bligh and his loyalists adrift in a rowboat. It’s a classic story of fighting back against cruelty and tyranny!
Last week, after HB 119 was amended from giving the State Superintendent, Choudhury the power to mandate how local systems teach the Maryland Health and Sex Education framework and sought to give him full power over ALL curriculums, the dominoes began to fall.
It didn’t help that Choudhury had shown himself to be a petulant, arrogant tyrant demeaning and chastising state legislators and MSDE staff. The Concerned Parents of Carroll County, a county that had felt his wrath before, developed a petition to remove him from his post.
In a comment on that petition, one person said: “There are so many people who have left MSDE because of this tyrant. He is a dictator, a micromanager, and doesn’t trust anyone in the walls of MSDE. Many great people have left or have been made to leave and it is not because they wanted to. He is toxic.” The person added that Choudhury has hurt the reputation of Maryland education nationally, “Maryland used to be viewed as the top in all of the country for early childhood education and the initiatives we have to bring early childhood education to the forefront. Now the federal partners laugh at Maryland. ” As of Friday, March 17, the petition had 1600 signatures.
Another article on the above website detailed multiple complaints about Choudhury:
Choudhury’s attitude is nothing new. In interviews during previous employment, Choudhury expressed that he wanted to do things in education that no one in the future could undo. In his time in education, he has had three previous jobs, one in California and two in Texas. He left his job in California complaining that his bosses wouldn’t let him do things his way. He left a job in Dallas after the Superintendent who hired him left unexpectedly amid controversy, not the least of which was Choudhury’s efforts to block certain groups of students from attending charter schools. He left San Antonio to come to Maryland. Seems Choudhury doesn’t stay in one place very long.
Now local school systems, the Maryland Association of Boards of Education, the Superintendents Association, and a long list of parent groups came out to oppose not only House Bill 119, but Choudhury’s continued employment. One by one, Carroll County, Baltimore County, Calvert County, Talbot County, Worcester County, and more came out against the State overreach into their duties, responsibilities and rights. Even the State School Board opposed the bill Choudhury so desperately wanted.
Mutiny in Maryland.
Choudhury, like Captain Blige, pushed counties one too many times, bullied them and legislators a bit too much, and alienated anyone at the Maryland State Department of Education that might help him. Apparently, he wants to rule the state education system completely without input from anyone else. That’s not how it’s supposed to work.
Sources tell us that staff he has hired have the same desire.
And now, he is in a boat with those few hires of his, trying to find a haven in rough seas. No one will rescue him. In fact, if he’s not careful, someone might put a hole in his boat. One thing that is true about government, when you demean people in power and overstep your bounds, the consequences are swift and undesirable. A life jacket might be useful, but not sure what one would look like.
At the very least, his reign has been severely damaged. Even if he keeps his job, people in education across the State dislike and distrust him. They will fight him on every attempt he makes to insert himself in local decisions.
The good news for Choudhury is that in the real Mutiny on the Bounty, Blige survived being set afloat and made his way back to England. Given the political climate currently, there are plenty of Progressive tyrants looking for someone just like him. He’ll land on his feet somewhere.
Just not in Maryland.
Jan can be reached at jan417@radiofreeoxford.com
Jan is a retired teacher and a current Chapter Chair for Moms for Liberty, Talbot
Maryland Superintendent Choudhury Wants to Subvert Representative Governance of Maryland Schools
By Jan Greenhawk, Editor/Writer, Radio Free Oxford
You can tell a lot about a person from how they handle the ideas and opinions of others.
Make no mistake about it. Superintendent Mohammed Choudhury doesn’t trust local school boards. He doesn’t trust county superintendents. He doesn’t trust teachers. He doesn’t respect the opinions of all parents. He doesn’t even like state legislators who question him.
He views all of those groups as impediments to HIS chosen agenda in Maryland education. He really wishes all those people would shut up and go away.
How do I know? I know because several times in the last week I have watched him get rude, arrogant and contentious when faced with legislators and/or reporters who asked him tough questions. He attempted to publicly humiliate a member of the Maryland House of Delegates, implying that the Delegate was too stupid to understand the difference between a curriculum and a framework even after Choudhury had “explained it to him for three hours ” a few days earlier. Here is that exchange:
Choudhury is in the white shirt addressing the delegate. Note the demeaning and impatient tone and words Choudhury uses to embarrass the Delegate. At the end of the clip, he threatens that he will continue to do what he wants.
I watched as he convinced lawmakers to take HB 119 and change it from a bill that covered ONE curriculum (Health and Sex Education Framework) that he can control to a bill that gives him full and complete authority to override local elected school boards and mandate what local school districts will teach in their classrooms in ALL Curriculums. If they go against him, they can lose 20% of their funding.
A person who respects local school boards, superintendents, communities, and most importantly, our form of government, wouldn’t do that. He would allow those groups to decide what is best for their students and their communities. It’s strange that he is so hell bent to wrest control away from them and take it for himself. Why does he hate local control so much?
How can a person who accepted a position to head a state school system view constituents and colleagues in such a way?
He says that he is doing it for his Superintendents who can’t focus on literacy while dealing with the issue of HB 119. He seems to think these Superintendents can’t chew gum and walk at the same time. Insult by implication.
Let’s take an in depth look at Mr. Choudhury and gain insight on him.
Mohammed Choudhury is the son of Pakistani Immigrants who came to the U.S. in the 80’s. He attended Los Angeles Public Schools as a child. He claims that his schools were in a district that had 75% poverty. Mr. Choudhury started his undergraduate work via Santa Monica Community College because he didn’t get into UCLA. He then earned his degree at California State University and later earned an M.Ed. from UCLA. He started his career as a classroom teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District where he earned accolades for his innovative work to partner with non-profit organizations to provide students with additional support in middle school. He eventually left the district because of frustrations with the district and school administrations.
From there, Choudhury went to the Dallas Independent School District in 2014 and developed 35 new or revamped charter schools organized around teachers’ interests. The first new schools were quickly overfilled and had some 1,600 applications for 617 seats for the 2016-17 academic year.
Many of the applicants were wealthy students and Choudhury didn’t want that.
From THE 74million.org:
Inevitably, affluent families flocked to the schools. The district came under pressure to give admissions priority at one — an all-girls engineering-themed school — to children from the surrounding very wealthy neighborhood. No way said Choudhury. That would simply re-create the segregation wrought by housing patterns. ( My question, is this where the dislike for local control started?)
More from the same article: “One of the things that we told ourselves is we’re not going to do school choice … in a way that exacerbates segregation,” he says. “We’re not going to create a system [that has] our hands and fingerprints on it that allows a few winners and lots of losers.”
Ultimately, the Superintendent who hired Choudhury resigned.
Having a new Superintendent in Dallas forced Choudhury to find a new job.
He ended up in San Antonio where he was tasked to do what he did in Dallas. During his interview he made it clear what his mission was. Again from the 74million.org:
“One of the things, if he (the Superintendent interviewing him) was going to pick me, diverse by design was going to happen,” says Choudhury. “That’s non-negotiable to me.” He was hired as the districts “Chief Innovation Officer” in 2017.
While in San Antonio, he once said to his staff that it’s important to “design as if we will not be here one day,” and to create programs so that it would be difficult to make decisions to undo what they have done. In retrospect a very enlightening statement.
This ultimately led him to the State Superintendency in Maryland just five years later in 2022 as he replaced retiring Superintendent Dr. Karen Salmon. A man who had never lived in Maryland and knew almost nothing about our state, signed a contract that netted him $310,000 a year, $40,000 a year more than Salmon.
As he started his tenure, there was much praise. People liked his energy, his dedication, his creative ideas. He met with different groups and populations.
But there were problems.
At the MACO (Maryland Association of County Officials) Convention in 2021, Choudhury railed at the actions of the Carroll County Board of Education who voted to allow only the U.S. and Maryland flag to be flown in county schools and classrooms after a petition from their constituents. According to sources, he was apoplectic that a local school board would decide to take that stand and exert that control over schools in their jurisdiction just because citizens wanted it. He seemed perturbed that it violated the way HE thought things should be done. He also seemed upset that they didn’t ask him about the issue.
Another example from 2022:
From Maryland Matters, August 18, 2022-“Predictably, since his job can be so controversial, a number of concerns were also expressed off the record. Repeatedly, he was portrayed as being touchy about criticism. Closely akin is the oft-stated comment that, while he is very knowledgeable, he can be closed off to the views of others.”
“These misgivings are voiced by insiders and outsiders. Many MSDE staff complain that he relies only on a small inner circle, creating internal bottlenecks; they feel holdover staff are deemed guilty by association with past MSDE failures. Stakeholders too, while appreciative of introductory sessions with him, describe him as more of a talker (especially on his experience in Texas) than a listener. They lament the difficulty of gaining a meaningful role so far in his planning and decision-making”
“One clear example is his lack of involvement with K-3 literacy advocates (me included). He waxes eloquent on the paramount importance of early literacy, and “science of reading” is a top priority in Maryland Leads grants. Yet, abundant national literature already spells out what evidence-based policies are needed, and MSDE was making notable progress with stakeholder input before Mr. Choudhury arrived. But he totally halted this effort. As a result, pending his long-promised comprehensive plan which is months (if not a year) away, our most vulnerable students have lost a precious and often irretrievable year in learning to read.”
“Other advocacy groups express similar reservations, wondering whether he will follow through, build relationships and provide meaningful engagement as decisions and plans evolve.”
“Conspicuously silent are two influential groups that represent local school systems: the Maryland Association of Boards of Education and the Public School Superintendents Association of Maryland. They declined to respond to my inquiries. This fits the clear impression, gleaned from many sources, that they are wary.” Maryland Matters, August 18, 2022-Kalman Hettleman
With the overhaul of HB 119 which created a bill that would give Mr. Choudhury full authority over ALL curricula taught in every district, these groups are no longer silent.
This letter from MABE says it all:
These groups aren’t going along with Choudhury’s vision of one person rule over education in the state. MABE notes that his desire for control will destroy the balance between local and state authority in the schools.
Choudhury seems to be looking for assistance in his plan as he recently hired a Chief of Staff, a position that has been unfilled during the past Superintendent’s tenure at MSDE.
After reading the article above, it’s easy to see why Ari Amerikaner was hired. It seems Amerikaner and Choudhury might share the same view of enforcing policies.
From the article above: Before joining The Education Trust, Amerikaner worked in the Obama administration as deputy assistant secretary in the U.S. Department of Education, where she helped craft spending rules for the Every Student Succeeds Act, which gave local officials more authority to define what it means for a school to be successful and how to intervene when it does not meet expectations.
Given the recent pushback from different state groups and local boards of education, it seems that Choudhury needs someone to reinforce the mandates he wants to institute. Who better than someone who has worked in an administration that created many mandates and enforcement measures and who has connections to some of the largest Progressive donors?
Is Choudhury under pressure to get curricular mandates in place? Are groups like GLSEN, SIECUS and other activist groups breathing down his neck? Maybe.
Is he merely a self-declared demigod who is enraged that his dictates are not being accepted? Or, as stated before, is he a man who has risen through the ranks too quickly and took a job that requires consensus building that he is not prepared for nor willing to do?
Only time will tell.
No matter what the truth is, the local Boards of Education and the legislators in the House and Senate need to make a bold statement to Superintendent Choudhury.
You cannot overrule the people of Maryland and our elected officials. You are not our Education Supreme Ruler.
Apparently, several school systems are sending that message loud and clear:
Other systems have done the same.
Maybe Choudhury should listen. But he needs to get over himself first.
President of the Maryland State School Board Exhibits Blatant Hypocrisy
by Jan Greenhawk, Editor/Writer Radio Free Oxford
This is a response to a letter from the President of the Maryland State School Board.
This week many of us have been writing about recent temper tantrums and demands from the State Superintendent of Schools. We’ve been calling him out for his desire to run all of the 24 jurisdictions in the state.
And I guess that pointing out that the State Superintendent of Education is a bully and tyrant is offensive to some, namely the President of the State School Board who hired said Superintendent with the approval of Lawrence Hogan, our former Governor. It’s so offensive that he decided to write about blog entries posted on the Delmarva Parent Teacher Coalition. Here’s his letter:
It’s very clear that Mr. Crawford dislikes the assertion that the State Superintendent, by forcing locals to implement the curriculum HE wants and not the curriculum chosen by elected school boards, is committing acts that could be construed as “illegal” and even “terroristic.”
This is “despicable” according to Mr. Crawford.
Maybe he is right. Maybe Mr. Choudhury shouldn’t be accused of committing terrorism. Maybe Mr. Crawford has the high moral ground on this issue.
Not so fast. He doesn’t.
In September 2021, the National School Boards Association, an Association that represents national, local and state school boards including those in Maryland, wrote this letter. Read this letter carefully.
This letter asks President Biden for “federal law enforcement and other assistance to deal with the growing number of threats of violence and acts of intimidation occurring across the nation.” Supposedly, the terrible events cited were being perpetrated by PARENTS SPEAKING AT SCHOOL BOARD MEETINGS.
The NASB asked for assistance from the U.S. DOJ, the FBI, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Secret Service, and the National Threat Assessment Center and even the U.S. Postal Service to protect people from PARENTS SPEAKING AT SCHOOL BOARD MEETINGS.
Why so many agencies? Well, the NASB wanted these agencies to review enforceable actions against these people under the PATRIOT ACT as in regard to DOMESTIC TERRORISM.
Wow. That’s pretty clear. The NASB wanted these parents handled as “domestic terrorists.” They actually portrayed them as such.
It didn’t stop there.
This prompted the DOJ, under the direction of Attorney General Merrick Garland, to issue a memo regarding the handling of parents as violent extremists. There are parents who had the FBI show up at their door after these people spoke at school board meetings.
Seems like a pretty strong reaction to parents exercising their freedom of speech in front of their elected officials to advocate for having a say in how their children were taught. Seems like a despicable accusation from the NASB.
You know what some of the “threats” were? They were people telling school board members that they wouldn’t get re-elected. Wooooo….that’s so violent.
Surely, the Maryland State Board of Education and Mr. Crawford wrote a letter expressing disgust and dismay at how parents were being portrayed, right? Surely, he pointed out that these two documents “belie(s) an ability to conduct any genuine policy disagreements that may be had in a civil and productive manner.”
Anyone? The answer is NOPE.
But surely Mr. Crawford encouraged local school boards in Maryland to distance themselves from the NASB, condemn them, speak out against them, right?
Take a look at the following website to see how many states responded to the actions of the NASB:
As of May 24th, 2022, 30 states have distanced themselves from the NSBA’s letter: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
26 stateshave taken further action—Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin — to withdraw membership, participation, or dues from NSBA.
You can see how what each did. Even CALIFORNIA, yes CALIFORNIA, left the NASB.
Here’s specifically what MARYLAND did as listed on the Parents Defending Education website:
When parents were said to be domestic terrorists, violent, horrible people. MARYLAND had NO RESPONSE.
Where was Mr. Crawford with his outrage? Where was his letter telling people how dismayed he was that innocent parents had been painted as domestic terrorists? The author of the post that Mr. Crawford was so angry about did not call Mr. Choudhury a terrorist. Here is the section of the blog that made Mr. Crawford furious enough to write a letter in less than a day:
As far as the county school boards, all of the boards need to band together and refuse to implement the framework. Those who have adopted the framework have a choice to unadopt it. Despite his threats, the state superintendent cannot defund all of the the counties. Would the state superintendent really force a school system to close their doors so that students can’t go to school in the name of equity? That’s not going to happen. That by definition is domestic terrorism.
As it stands, this is coercion and extortion, and it’s a felony in the State of Maryland. The local county school boards need to grow a backbone, unite with the other counties, and use their board attorneys to form a class action lawsuit to sue the state of Maryland in federal court. For the first time, the school boards need to use their attorneys to help the people instead of using them against the people.
Let’s see. A national organization contacts the President to request national resources against parents who were called terrorists for speaking out at school board meetings. An Attorney General of the United States acted on that letter to take action against normal, everyday people who just want to speak to their elected officials.
The President of the Maryland State School Board said NOTHING. NADA. ZILCH.
A local blogger calls out a State Superintendent for his attempt at a tyrannical takeover of every school system in the state and the invalidation of the votes of citizens. What happens?
In less than a day, the President of the Maryland State School Board wrote a letter decrying the content of the blog with a ton of fretful pearl clutching.
Please Mr. Crawford, spare us your hypocritical outrage. It’s not only ludicrous, but it is an insult to all the people in this state who believe in freedom of speech and the right to address grievances against their elected and appointed public officials.
We know why you did it. You are trying to shut us up.
Not going to happen. And, if you are trying to intimidate us into silence, you might want to re-read the part of Merrick Garland’s memo where he promises to protect American citizens from forms of intimidation and harassment. Like letters from public officials that attempt to stifle free speech.
Sorry if that ruins your day.
Jan can be reached at jan417@radiofreeoxford.com
Jan is a retired teacher, former Talbot County Teacher of the Year, and a current Chapter Chair for Moms for Liberty, Talbot
Spoiled State Superintendent Pouts Like a Two-Year-Old So the Maryland House of DelegatesThrows Him a Pacifier
By Jan Greenhawk, Editor/Writer for Radio Free Oxford
It’s a scene you can find in ANY supermarket, a mom pushes a grocery cart around the store with a toddler seated in the front. As they pass the candy aisle, the toddler starts pointing at candy, screeching, and flailing his legs and arms. “I want, I want!”
The mom tries to ignore the screaming child, but everyone is watching them and it’s clear that they are irritated that the parent will not shut the child up. The mom eventually gives in and hands the toddler all the candy he wants. The child quiets down and all is well.
It’s a common scene in a supermarket, but not usually in a State House of Delegates or Department of Education.
Unless you live in Maryland.
In a previous post I wrote about how the Maryland Superintendent of Schools, Mohammed Choudhury, angry that this Health and Sex Education Framework was stalling in committee, demanded that all counties in Maryland adopt this curriculum or else. Here’s the link. You can read about how this all played out, complete with video evidence.
At the time of that post, we did not know the extent of the “amendments” to this bill. Here they are:
I’m not sure “amended” adequately describes what they did to this bill. This was a mutilation. There are more strikethroughs than there are sentences. Delegate Atterbeary even giggles about it.
Let’s look at the “pieces” that are left.
On the first page we find out that the Superintendent of Schools would have complete control over what counties teach in ANY CURRICULUM. Even the title of the bill has been changed to read, “County Boards of Education: Curriculum Guides and Courses of Study-Requirements.” If local districts don’t do as Choudhury demands in any subject, they can lose 10% of their budgets for each 30 days they ignore his edicts which could be up to 20%. Here’s the paragraph:
They even made the “opt out ” choice for parents subject to the control of the State Superintendent. If counties don’t implement the opt out as he deems, they get fined for that.
To top off this tyranny, the State Superintendent will demand local Superintendents provide HIM with all curricular and instructional materials used in their schools. So, while parents will fight to see what is being taught to their children, the State Superintendent will have these materials at his fingertips.
Impressive, huh? All this power in the hands of ONE MAN in the state. Why, heck, why did we even bother to elect school boards when Emperor Mohammed Choudhury will make all the decisions from his throne at the Maryland State Department of Education? Seems kind of silly.
My mother-in-law once described for me how she stopped her children from having temper tantrums. She certainly didn’t give into them. No. She would take a big bucket of cold water and dump it over their heads. She said it always worked.
It’s time for someone to throw some cold water on Mohammad Choudhury’s head. It’s time for him to learn that in a Representative Constitutional Republic, the PEOPLE get to choose leaders, give input to those leaders, and then hold those leaders accountable for their decisions. We don’t have kings, sultans, emperors, or supreme rulers.
Choudhury Mid-Poutat a State Board Meeting
If he can’t handle that, maybe he needs to find another job. I’m sure there is an empty throne room somewhere. Just not here.
Want to throw a figurative bucket of water on Choudhury’s head? Write to the delegates on the Ways and Means Committee, any other of our officials and your local Delegates and Senators. A sample letter is included at the end.
Here’s a sample letter you can edit, copy and send:
To Whom it May Concern,
We are writing to protest the callous, illegal extortion and coercion that the State Superintendent of Schools, Mohammad Choudhury and Delegate Vanessa Atterbeary are conspiring to commit against the 24 local school boards and school systems of Maryland.
To provide context, our groups are vehemently opposed to HB 119/SB 199, implementation of the Comprehensive Health Education Framework. This letter is not directly about that, but about the conspiratorial actions of the State Superintendent and Delegate Atterbeary.
The Superintendent and Delegate Atterbeary have now edited the bill to grant sole authority to the Superintendent of Schools and the unelected State Board of Education to determine which curriculum and courses of study taught in ANY content in every district in Maryland. If districts don’t comply, the State Superintendent can punish them by taking away 20% of their local funding.
This is a tyrannical overreach by the State. Never in our history has the legislature or the State Superintendent DEMANDED that our local elected Boards teach exactly what the State mandates.
The bill also requires that any “opt out” measures that local boards initiate must meet the requirements of the State. This basically removes that option from local, elected officials.
This is a nullification of the votes of citizens in districts where Board of Education members are elected. It also removes the rights for locals to determine the curricula and courses of study best suited for the needs of their student population and communities.
We ask that you vigorously oppose this bill.
(Copyright does NOT apply to the sample letter)
Jan can be reached at jan417@radiofreeoxford.com
Jan is a retired teacher and a current Chapter Chair for Moms for Liberty, Talbot
Arrogance and Tyranny will Destroy Maryland Public Schools
Transparency, Faith and Common Sense are the ONLY Hope!
Jan Greenhawk, Editor, Radio Free Oxford
I’m not sure what they told Maryland State Superintendent of Education Mohammed Choudhury when he was hired in July of 2021. According to his latest actions and attitude, he seems to think he was told that if hired, he would be the king and almighty ruler of Maryland’s schools. It could be his California background. Based on what the interview committee said after they hired him, I don’t think THEY thought he would be a dictator of Maryland schools.
Here’s a quote from Clarence Crawford, head of that committee: “When we set out on our search for Maryland’s next superintendent, our goal was to identify and hire the highest caliber candidate to build the future of education for all Maryland children. Considering Mr. Choudhury’s outstanding transformative accomplishments, we are completely confident that we have hired the right person, one who deeply cares about children,” said Board President Clarence Crawford. “Mr. Choudhury distinguished himself by providing a fresh perspective, and his engaging high-energy approach brings the best out of the people he serves. He is a bold pioneer in the educational community, and we are fortunate to have secured his leadership as Maryland’s chief education officer as we continue to recover from the devastating impacts of COVID-19 and seek to implement the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future. Mr. Choudhury is an empathetic and collaborative leader and hard-working person who values input and diverse perspectives.”
They claimed he brings out the best in people. They used the words “empathetic,”, “collaborative” and the phrase “values input and diverse perspectives” to describe him. Doesn’t say authoritarian and tyrannical to me.
Did Choudhury forget that? Or did he hear what he wanted to hear? Maybe he didn’t listen at all. Based on his recent actions, I think the last one is true. He doesn’t listen to others.
Maybe he told the committee what he thought THEY wanted to hear.
At any rate, in the time between his hiring and now, Superintendent Choudhury has developed quite a different attitude from empathetic and collaborative. Here’s some examples:
The first example is Superintendent testifying for HB 119/SB 199 in front of the Senate. He is engaging with Senator Brooks, a well-respected, powerful Senator. Notice Choudhury’s rude, demeaning and arrogant response to the Senator when the Senator asks what the difference is between mandating a Health and Sex Education Framework, which Choudhury supports, and instituting a financial literacy curriculum requirement, which Choudhury doesn’t support.
Not only is he demeaning and rude to the delegate, but he issues a threat if the framework doesn’t become mandated. He says he will find a way to force locals to do what he says.
King Choudhury is not happy.
And just like that, with the prospect that the Health and Sex Education Framework may not get passed, Choudhury got another dictatorial Democrat, Delegate Atterbeary, Democrat, Howard County, to devise a different scheme. Listen carefully as she describes how they will get rid of the HB 119 and replace it with a bill that allows the Superintendent of Schools to deny funding to ANY system that doesn’t do what he demands.
The arrogance of Delegate Atterbeary with the tyranny of Superintendent Choudhury combine to make a huge power grab. And she laughs about it. It’s funny to her. She even calls the new bill a “scheme” to force “bad actors” to comply. She views locally elected Boards of Education that have independent opinions as “bad actors.” Very telling.
The final clip is just an example of Superintendent Choudhury and his total unprofessionalism and disregard for people who dare to question him. This is reporter Chris Papst asking about complete academic failure in Baltimore City. He couldn’t get answers from education officials in Baltimore, so he went to the State Board of Education:
Did you have the same thoughts I did when you watched this? Did you wonder what is wrong with this guy? Is he REALLY that arrogant and dismissive of others? What is he hiding behind that useless mask? (Just a note. This mask he wears intermittently only seems to appear when he doesn’t want to answer tough questions.)
On top of that, the Baltimore City Schools and the State Department hide the facts and refuse to answer Mr. Pappes’ questions. Which brings up transparency. Not only do these so called “leaders” want to demean anyone who asks questions, they refuse to be honest and open with what is going on in schools, especially with the city system that spends over $18,000 a year per student.
If Choudhury gets his way, he will have complete authority to remove funding from any district he doesn’t see as compliant to his curricular demands. His actions will nullify the votes of citizens who elect local school board members. Sounds kind of like money laundering, doesn’t it? Or maybe extortion? At the very least coercion.
I’m sure the Mafia and Cartels would be impressed with his brazen threats to local systems.
This is how one destroys the public education in Maryland. The attitudes shown above will be combined with the onerous Blueprint for Maryland’s future which will put the state and local agencies in horrific debt for YEARS. Not only will property and income tax rates in counties increase by as much as 35% in the next seven years, but local systems will struggle to find and pay adequate staff to provide all the programs and facilities the Blueprint demands. Children will suffer under unqualified staff in overcrowded classrooms. Academics will be ignored for social emotional learning and other useless feel-good programs and CRT. While our competitors in China and other countries will teach their children useful skills, ours will be taught to question their gender and sexual preference, causing many of them to undergo dangerous body mutilating surgery and/or hormone therapies. Many of them will suffer permanent physical and mental damage. Some will commit suicide.
Sooner or later, parents will wake up and the public school system will crumble under the oppression of people like Choudhury and Progressive legislators who are willing to sell out our children’s future for favor from Teachers’ Unions and fringe special interest groups like GLSEN (glsen.org) and SIECUS (SIECUS: Sex Ed for Social Change) Parents who can afford private schools and homeschooling will leave. Those who are left will watch their children stay and suffer.
States where property and income taxes soar will lose population like New York, California, and other states have. Maryland is not far behind.
All because of the arrogance and tyranny of the Progressive Cult.
Is there hope?
I believe there is and I believe it exists in the honesty, transparency and humility of some of the local officials.
The other day, I met with our local Superintendent of Schools. It was one of several meetings we have had since she has been on the job. When I first met her last summer, I was impressed with her down to earth approach and honest desire to do the best for our students. With her arrival, the attitude at Board meetings, etc. has become more open and positive. There is no arrogance, no dismissiveness of parents and citizens.
In our conversations, we speak honestly and openly. We share ideas and thoughts about different things going on in the county and State. She communicated with our parents by attending one of our meetings. We hope to have her attend more.
She meets with many different groups in our county as well. She accessible and genuine.
In our last meeting, she said something that hit home with me. She said she wanted transparency and communication to be a crucial practice in our system. She wants input from many different groups. She wants our children to be successful academically. She listens to opinions.
Will we agree on everything she wants to do in the school system? Probably not. Will we ever disagree on issues? Probably so. When we have to disagree, we will. But, when we do it will be an open, honest conversation.
Knowing her and several other local officials, I believe she and people with her same attitudes and beliefs could be the saving grace for our schools, our children, and our communities. It won’t be easy.
There will be bumps in the road as locals try to negotiate between what the state requires and what the community wants. But I believe they will default to what is best for our children in any way they can.
These are the people we have to support. When the State gives them a hard time for doing the right thing, we need to stand up with them.
We cannot let arrogance and tyranny take over and destroy our children. We have to have faith in good people to do what is right. There are many others out there in other districts, other counties.
It’s the only way to save the public schools for the children who need them.
ADDITIONAL NOTES: In a recent letter drafted to be sent to the Legislature on behalf of several parent groups regarding Choudhury’s overreach, these are the last two paragraphs:
We see this as not only as an overreach of State government, but a new precedent that will eliminate the voices of parents and citizens in the counties of Maryland and nullify the electoral process they follow to choose their education representatives on their Boards of Education.
In many ways, this educational shakedown of the school districts of Maryland by the State Superintendent of Schools borders on the illegal as defined by State Statute 3-1202. It must be totally rejected, and the legislature needs to carefully examine the continued employment of a Superintendent who desires so much dictatorial control.
Jan can be reached at jan417@radiofreeoxford.com
Jan is a retired teacher and a current Chapter Chair for Moms for Liberty, Talbot
Progressive Mantra: Choice for Me But Not For Thee
When it Comes to Options that are Actually Good for Children, Progressives Pick Mandates over Choice EVERY Time
by Jan Greenhawk, Editor/writer Radio Free Oxford
It’s a puzzle, an irony, a conundrum. Progressives, the party of “you do you” and “my body my choice” have once again proven that they hate choice when it comes to programs and actions that are actually GOOD for children.
Want to abort your child seven days after it’s born? Your choice. Want to allow your minor child to have body parts removed and be put on hormone blockers/therapy? Your choice. Want to take your child to a drag queen show in an adult bar and expose them to overly sexualized and inappropriate entertainment? Your choice.
Want to get your child out of a failing school and take him/her to a good school where he/she can succeed? Whoa, wait a minute. Progressives can’t have that. They think that is dangerous.
It makes me wonder why.
When I was teaching, the argument was always the same. “If we take kids out of some public schools and allow them to go to better public or private schools, it will leave the public schools decimated. “
And the people who said this always followed it up with, ” School choice is racist and elitist.”
The “best” argument of all was “public schools can’t succeed if we take the best kids out.” Wow. And they called those who believe in school choice racist and elitist? It’s kind of like when Joe Biden said, “Poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as White kids.” Biden says ‘poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids’ (nbcnews.com)
But he’s not racist. No. Never. But you people who support school choice, shame on you.
I was a teacher and my husband and I took our kids out of public school. We did it because I saw the decline in our local system, the overcrowding in classrooms, and the general lack of motivation to allow all children to achieve to the best of their ability. We took them out in elementary school and left them in private school until they were ready to go to high school where they could have some flexibility in their classes. I never regretted it. Neither did my children. They actually learned how to meet academic standards that mattered.
I caught a lot of grief from my public-school bosses and some of my colleagues. One even threatened to get me fired.
There were also many colleagues who completely understood my reasons.
It was a financial struggle. It probably cost us some retirement funds and a high credit score. If I could go back, I would do it all over again.
Not all parents have financial resources to do that. And that is what school choice is about, allowing ALL parents to make a choice for their children who are trapped in failing public schools. That’s why it puzzles me when Progressives are dead set against school choice.
Most people understand that local communities support public schools through a combination of property tax, local income tax and state income tax. In our area, the citizens voted to put a cap on local property tax but followed that up with an additional “school tax.” So, even people who have no children in schools are paying taxes to support those schools.
Honestly, as an older, retired person, I don’t mind my taxes going to support schools especially if I know they are doing a good job and are spending those dollars efficiently and effectively on CLASSROOMS, not middle management and excess administrative salaries and wasteful social manipulation programs.
It’s a harder pill to swallow for those who feel they need to pull their children out of public schools because the public schools are failing. Not only do those families pay the taxes to support the public schools, but they pay tuition to private schools or pay for homeschool materials because their children are not learning in public schools. It’s a double burden on family budgets, especially those in the middle class.
The hardest hit are those families in cities and those on the low end of the economic spectrum. Their children are more likely to go to urban public schools and if those schools are failing their children, they have nowhere to go. In this story from Fox News, a mother talks about the devastating effect of a failing school on her child:
Fortunately for her and her husband, they were able to send their youngest son to a private school. They weren’t able to do that with her older son, who graduated from a city school without the skills and knowledge necessary to be successful.
But, both the previous and current Governor decided to cut money from that program. Hogan said it was because no one was using it. Governor Moore, the champion of “Leave no one behind” said: “As we are thinking about what needs to happen with public dollars, public dollars do not need to be going to private schools. Public dollars are going to ensuring that we are building a world-class, public-school system for all Maryland students.”
Restrain your derisive laughter please. Recent test scores show that Maryland is doing just the opposite. Did he miss the part about NO STUDENTS scoring proficient in math in Baltimore City? Did he see where the TOP county in the state scored at 32% proficiency in math? Reading wasn’t much better. Did he mean to say we are building a “THIRD World-class public-school system”?
Even if we give him the grace to wait for things to improve, how will this help the millions of children who have been severely damaged by the past three years in our public schools? Whether it was due to Covid or not doesn’t matter in the argument. There is no sense of urgency to improve things NOW. It’s just about creating more feckless feel-good, time and money wasting programs that will never help these kids gain back lost academic ground. While they are worried about forcing gender change therapy and surgery on our five-year-olds and dividing us by racial stereotypes, our children are not progressing academically.
We should be providing MORE academics, more content instruction. We aren’t.
Our children deserve other options. The lack of competition for the public schools has allowed them to shrug their shoulders and treat our kids like they are standing in a long line at the MVA. “Don’t like it,” they say, “Tough. Shut up and deal with it.”
As stated in the article above, Republican lawmakers in Maryland are trying to keep the school choice scholarships for low-income families alive. They have sponsored HB 737:
This bill is a good start, but it still doesn’t address the problem of middle-class families whose children are trapped in failing schools. They may be able to afford private schools with substantial sacrifices, but they will still have to pay taxes that support schools their children don’t attend.
The rich elite don’t have to worry with that problem. The poor families could get scholarships. The middle-class family is still stuck. They don’t qualify for the BOOST program, and they can’t afford private school tuition or to lose one wage earner to provide homeschooling. They watch their children lose academic ground and be taught they are in the wrong physical body, be exposed to overly sexualized content, or that they are bad because of their skin color.
The financial burden will only get worse. As counties take on the Blueprint for Maryland’s future, an initiative that will raise taxes by approximately 34% in the next five years, these families will have less money to spend on private education or homeschooling.
What is the solution? Bills like HB 737 are a great start. But the real answer is allowing ALL parents a tax break for private school or homeschooling expenses in much the same way they allow tax breaks for other items. Allow the “money to follow the child” by giving parents a tax break equal to what their home county or district spends per public school child. This may not cover private tuition or homeschooling expenses completely, but it would help.
The danger in this, however, is that the state will want to attach “strings” to this money. They will force private schools to implement the same programs as public schools. They’ll insist on government “visits” to homeschool families to monitor what is going on and then insist on certain curricula. In much the same way as the changing of the goal lines in the Covid restrictions, I can envision the state making requirements harder and harder.
Those who write these bills will have to make sure they write them so that can’t happen. Even so, it’s always a gamble with government. That is why elections are so important.
For the time being, HB 737 is what we have. Even if it passes, it seems the new Governor is likely veto it. He will do so to flex his political ego and prove to everyone that the is a true Progressive. And, as we know, Progressives hate choice when it actually benefits families and their children.
Jan can be reached at jan417@radiofreeoxford.com
Jan is a retired teacher and a current Chapter Chair for Moms for Liberty, Talbot
Gender Ideology in Schools is part of the Religous Cult of State
by Jan Greenhawk, Editor/Writer, Radio Free Oxford
” I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and Last, the Beginning and the End.”-Revelation 22:13 The BIBLE
I was reading a book entitled Educating for the New World Order by B.K.Eakman and I came across a chapter entitled ” The Slippery Slope.” In this chapter, the author outlines the following things happening in schools:
Parents are being undermined by schools and then, when they complain, they are told, “You are the only parent that has ever complained,” as the standard response. Parental involvement is given lip service; community support is solicited, but only when it helps the system get money.
Parents teach their children morals and values only to have educators go behind them and tell the children their parents are wrong.
Parenthood is discounted by the schools while at the same time they blame parents for everything wrong a child does. Teachers claim to be “experts” about children while asserting that parents have NO idea how to raise their children.
Schools promote political beliefs in the classroom such as socialism, fascism
, globalism, etc.
Schools collect data on student attitudes and therefore their family’s beliefs. These surveys are used to violate the privacy of a family and destroy familial relationships, thus opening the door for CPS. Data collected is used in political campaigns to address certain issues and avoid others.
Law mandates that children attend school. Parents are not welcome in schools. Schools promote whichever values are currently pushed by the state; racial hatred, atheism, a fear of real science, a distaste for differing political opinions and even hostility towards their own parents.
Schools become a prop that politicians can use during election year. They ally with unions to do so.
Health Curriculums instruct teachers to tell students to hide information being taught about sexual activity from their parents.
Parent protests are not reported on by the media.
The chapter includes the phrase, “The Group is Alpha” over and over.
Sound familiar?
This book was written in 1991. Twenty-two years ago. My adult children were toddlers then. Many of the parents who currently have children in the public schools were children then. They experienced all of the above and they and their parents were not aware. I wasn’t, and I was a teacher.
If it was the slippery slope in 1991, we are now in the quicksand at the bottom of the slope. We have been sucked in and are sinking fast. And, in 2023, it seems the “State is Alpha.”
It’s part of what the Chinese Communists call “The Soft War.” Marxist Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) called it “The Long March Through the Institutions.” His theory was that you can install Marxism in a country through societal subversion of reality and values. Regardless of what you call it, we are experiencing events which have been happening in increments for a very long time. (Bongino, Podcast, February 17, 2023.) Our values and religious faith are being replaced by the new faith, worship of the State and its Gender Ideology.
The State is Alpha.
And Education plays a major role in this subversion.
Why have we been so easily led down this path and why aren’t parents demanding it stop?
One reason is that Progressives are very good at presenting programs, laws, etc. as positive steps in the fight against whichever societal ills afflict us. They promote initiatives as helping others. If there is a mass shooting, they jump up with gun control laws that seem to protect us, even if they don’t. If they want you to wear a mask or take a vaccine when neither is effective, they tell you it is to show love for granny and protect her from dying of Covid. If they open the borders to all, they tell you we need illegal immigrants to do the jobs Americans won’t do and we need to help those poor people out, even if it hurts our people. Using hormone blockers and gender reassignment mutilation is gently called “gender affirming care. “None of that nonsense is true, but it SOUNDS nice, right?
The State proclaims they are the chosen ones, the “apostles” who can make these things happen. And we, the people, will pay for their actions.
In their perverted logic, all that matters is that the alpha state wants something and we, the citizens, need to make sure it gets it. Right now, the alpha state wants gender ideology.
Here is a Maryland Legislator, Joe Vogel, Democrat from Montgomery County, giving an example of how Progressives give the State what it wants. He makes the wrong thing sound like the right thing as he celebrates the defeat of the “Save Women’s Sports Bill” which would have prevented biological male athletes in public schools from competing against biological women in women’s sports, even if those males were transgenders pretending to be women.
As our comment to his Tweet says, Shameful. (If you are wondering, the head of this committee who voted the bill down is Vanessa Atterbeary, Howard County Democrat who also wants to teach our 7th grade children about solo, oral, vaginal and anal sex and how they are performed. It’s another part of the gender ideology dogma.)
If you didn’t know better, it’s almost like Joe is standing at the pulpit of his Statist Church and testifying to his congregation that he has been baptised and saved through gender ideology. All he needs now is a child to sacrifice to his god.
The State is Alpha.
Did I mention that Joe identifies as a “Gen Z-er.” Yeah. That.
The public education system is the perfect church for the Alpha State.
After all, the public schools, like churches, have a captive audience. Where else can you get millions of children under the direction of adults who want to involve them in the “religion.” Where else can you find adults who, believing they are doing what is right, will deliver the gender ideology liturgy of the month.
And that’s how they trick people. It’s like the con artist preacher who shows up in his nice car, great suit, and bright smile telling us how great his church is and how his belief got him where he is today. He looks so good; how could he possibly be scamming us? Pass the collection plate and give us your kids!
The sick con artists with a god complex promote gender changing surgery or therapy perpetrated on children whenever and wherever they can. Children and parents are told this will make them whole, they will be saved. They use the flawed threat that if parents don’t allow their children gender reassignment therapy their child will likely commit suicide. Parents find out later in life that they have destroyed their children on an altar of lies and deceit.
Listen to this podcast with parent January Littlejohn as she talks about how her local school transitioned her child without consent:
In this podcast, Ms. Littlejohn describes how her child’s school near Tallahassee, Florida went behind her back to transition her daughter who, at the age of 11, suddenly questioned her gender because many of her friends had been manipulated to do so. It’s shocking how reckless the school was with this.
It’s Florida. A red state. Think it isn’t happening all over the country? You are wrong.
In the podcast, Ms. Littlejohn mentions a group called “Gender Spectrum.” If you would like to see what this group does, go to: Gender Spectrum Homepage – Gender Spectrum
As soon as you go to this page, you will see wonderful videos and pictures of people with their children doing all the things parents do. Wow. This “church” must be a great one.
I went there and used the pull-down menu to identify myself as a teacher who wanted educational resources. Here is one of the documents I found:
This document is a support plan filled out at the school with a student, more than likely without a parent. As you scroll down, you’ll see that kids can decide if they want to tell their parents or not. Just like a cult, it seems that family just gets in the way of the full assimilation of cult members. Jim Jones would be so proud!
Woe be to the parents that question the cult. The Littlejohns had to go to court over what happened to their daughter. The judge denied their case. Now they have to suffer all the repercussions of what happened to her and how their family was torn apart. Using the title Abigail Shrier gave her book about our daughters being seduced by the transgender craze, this is IRREVERSIBLE DAMAGE. The Littlejohns are still appealing the case.
Gender Spectrum is in 39 states. In 2020 and 2021, they received more than $800,000 in government funds. They operate out of California so it is not clear whether these are state or federal funds or both. And they have plenty of sponsors.
Here are some of their sponsors. Notice that PEARSON is at the top. Pearson is a textbook, instructional materials, and assessment company that markets to school systems. How will they promote the gender ideology in those materials? If you go to their website, you won’t find out how unless you purchase something as a school system. Seems kind of shady.
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SECONDARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS: NASSP.org Yep, that is a group of secondary school PRINCIPALS who helps sponsor Gender Spectrum. If your principal is a member, their dues are supporting gender ideology. And, it’s likely they are being brought into the gender ideology fold.
ADVOCATES FOR YOUTH: Advocates for Youth This group not only supports transgender reassignment surgery, but that old standard abortion.
There are more. Many of them hide behind beautiful pictures of happy teens and families.
Like I said. A cult. And it is growing. If you go to any of these sites, and look at their “partners” you’ll see a long list of companies, organizations, teachers’ unions, etc.
We watch Progressives fall in line and worship these ideas just like our Gen-Z politician from Montgomery County, Maryland who somehow thinks that giving men an unfair competitive advantage over women in sports is a holy cause to share like scripture. He is a member of a sick cult. A cult that wants to confuse, disfigure and neuter our children.
For those who push back on the cult, the Progressives conduct a wide inquisition type campaign that portrays us as heretics, non-believers, haters and “phobes.” We are shunned, cancelled, removed, dismissed, and silenced. Remember, parents at school board meetings, the unvaccinated, and now even Catholics who like Latin mass, are being targeted not only by the “faithful” Progressive cult crazies, but the FBI.
Parents who may try to protect their children from the mutilation of the cult are demonized and threatened. In the case below, Virginia is trying to keep that from happening after a young lady was trafficked after because schools wouldn’t tell her mother of her transgender status.
Remember, Progressives are the ones who have railed against Christians for forcing people to convert. Seems hypocritical that they are willing to do that to people who reject their ideology and don’t want it forced on innocent children.
There are groups informing parents about how to fight this. One good site is donoharmmedicine.org. You’ll find resources there such as model legislation, information, etc. Chloe Cole, an 18-year-old detransitioner is among the leadership for this group.
Of course, we encourage families who can do it to homeschool their children. Other families need to keep the lines of communication open with their children, stay involved, talk to teachers on a regular basis, and have a presence in your child’s school. And, always, stay informed on this topic. Watch your legislature for bills that promote gender ideology and write your public officials in protest.
This bill was introduced by the Progressive Gender Ideology “clergy” in our Maryland’s recent session:
It allows the taxpayer funded Maryland Medical Assistance Program to cover “Gender Affirming Treatment” which runs the gamut from changing hair style to lopping off body parts and hormone blockers. We used to call these actions barbaric. Now we call them “affirmative.”
At the top of the blog, I quoted Revelation 22:23. God tells us HE is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end.
Somehow Progressives want to change that. THEY want to be the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. They want to replace God in our lives with an ideology of relativism, gender confusion, and disregard for basic human decency, morality, liberty and individuality. They will destroy anyone who gets in their way.
Cults do that. Not Constitutional Republics. Not Americans.
A good townhall to attend:
Jan can be reached at jan417@radiofreeoxford.com
Jan is a retired teacher and a current Chapter Chair for Moms for Liberty, Talbot
How the CDC, the State, and Private Corporations Will Take Your Children
by Jan Greenhawk, Editor, Writer, Radio Free Oxford
My children are grown now. I don’t have grandchildren… yet.
Yet to this day, I remember having to hand my kids over to a babysitter, a pre-school teacher, or even my mother-in-law while I went to work. It was a quick stab in my heart and a feeling that I needed to quit my job, turn around, and make sure I was with them all the time.
No matter who the person was, they couldn’t take care of or protect my child like I could and did. I certainly wouldn’t let anyone make decisions on their behalf.
This was during the early 90’s and at that same we were hearing the quote bantered around the education community that ” It takes a village to raise a child.” This was from an African proverb that means it takes many people to provide a safe, healthy environment for children so they can develop and flourish.
I hated that quote. I hated it even more when Hillary Clinton wrote a book using it as the title. I hated that quote because it made it sound like EVERYONE should have a say in how my children were raised. I hated that quote because it was twisted to mean that others, strangers, had a right to “raise” my child. This meant treating my child as they saw fit, imbuing their values on MY child, bringing my child up with their ideas. Even if some of them had altruistic intentions, they had NO right to do either of those. These were my children who I carried in my body and labored to deliver, who I sat up with late at night to feed, who I sat with when they were sick or afraid. My husband and I discussed their upbringing and made those decisions TOGETHER.
The community and government had no role in their lives beyond compulsory education. Even today when they are both grown, I will still fight to my death to protect them.
Which parent doesn’t feel that way? I’d like to hear from those who don’t.
Now the Progressives in education and government want to take away the right to raise children away from the parents. They want to do this through the public schools where they are promising a wonderful fantasy land of everything anyone could want. Health care, psychological care, healthy food, appropriate exercise, social and emotional learning, and on and on. The only thing they leave out is what they are actually supposed to do, teach skills and content in math, reading, science, history, writing, and the arts. And they don’t tell you about the full control they will exert over your child. It’s a Communist Utopia!
This fantasy land comes with a monetary and social price. It comes with a huge payout to those who are creating and supporting it, Unions, the CDC, United Nations, and World Health Organization along with big corporations like ASCD, Blue Shield, United Way, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, many private hospitals and countless others.
One on the list may surprise many of you. It surprised me. It is ASCD. ASCD used to be the Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development. In the late 90’s and early 2000’s, this organization was one many of us looked to for ideas on how to teach our students. I was a member! I wrote an article for their magazine!
I didn’t realize that ASCD started out under the National Education Association until they went on their own in 1972, becoming a 501c3 nonprofit organization in 1985. They, like the NEA, moved away from their initial mission to help educate children to being a left leaning organization that opposed school vouchers and supported CRT, gender ideology, one world governance and the social emotional takeover of children. They call it educating “the whole child.”
In 2014, they partnered with HHS and the CDC to create the “Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child” (WSCC) model for schools all over the world, including the United States. ASCD has the professional training and teacher indoctrination part of that initiative. HHS and CDC have the health and welfare structure.
“It takes a village” suddenly became “it takes the government” to raise a child.
WSCC sounds great until you realize one thing. Nowhere in the title does it mention parents or the rights of parents. It doesn’t even mention the rights of children to be EDUCATED.
That’s because parents and their rights don’t exist. At least not in a role of authority or decision making. They are just a cog in the machine, and one that can easily be replaced. They are bystanders watching their children grow up.
If you want to see what WSCC looks like, all you need to do is go to the CDC website.
Upon arrival, you’ll meet “Principal Paul” who greets you at the door to take you on your wonderful journey inside the WSCC “healthy” school.
You must go to this site to experience it for yourself. Click on each door to see each area. You’ll see a school where everyone eats healthy food picked by the government, exercises in a way dictated by the government, is counseled in an approved manner from the government, gets medical care (keeping medical records on your child) according to government guidelines, has organized SAFE play within government parameters, and learns diversity and inclusion as dictated by the government. Don’t look for anything about academics, you won’t find them. It’s a Stepford School (if you don’t know that reference, look up STEPFORD WIVES. It’s an old movie.) Even the COMMUNITY is idealist and perfect.
You may think that this is just some kind of imaginary school plan that will never be put in place. You’re wrong.
On the CDC website, you will find what they call “Stories on Achievements” which are a list of programs in seventeen states where the CDC has reached its tentacles. Not only that, but you will find classroom materials for teachers to use to teach about the CDC, classroom management, what to teach etc. The CDC has ALL the answers for every problem a teacher may encounter in a classroom.
As for parents, the CDC clearly defines the role of parents. It’s not in decision making, it’s merely to support what the government schools says. View this presentation:
This is not a new concept. Many states, including Maryland, are already creating “community schools.” Any school in Maryland that has a Title one population of over 40% gets to be a “community school.” The community schools look remarkably like the CDC model of WSCC schools.
What is particularly troubling about both of these models is that they include what are called ” home visits” by either school personnel or CPS workers. These visits may initially start out as just a way to share information on how parents should feed, provide medical or mental health care for their children, but will give public officials a look into the private lives of families. They may not find anything wrong, but never forget that if people resist mandatory orders about how their children are raised, public officials make their reputation on finding those things and acting to “persuade” parents. What happens when parents refuse?
We have already seen parents in several states having their children removed from their homes when parents didn’t support gender reassignment medical procedures:
It won’t be a stretch for them to remove your child because you refuse to comply with dietary “suggestions” or if you allow your child to do something “dangerous” like learn how to shoot a rifle or even play football.
It’s not that far off in the future. In Maryland, parents may not even be allowed to know what is happening with their child or give permission for certain medical procedures if SB 378 is passed.
Senator Cheryl Kagan, Democrat, Montgomery County, is proposing this bill that will allow children 14 years old or, in some cases, younger, to consent to vaccinations without parent approval. The bill shields those who give the child the vaccinations from being sued if there are adverse reactions or the child dies. Oh, and the parents can’t see the child’s records.
California’s laws are similar, but for ages 12 and up.
Here is a video of Colorado’s “confidentiality” laws for kids:
The CDC's WSCC model of schools plans to make "Every School a Community School" and they, "won't tell your parents." Parenthood is being captured by the government. Your rights are eroding. And the goal of Health Equity in this model is hormones and mutilating surgeries. pic.twitter.com/LbnNugXZFe
What is the end game here? History tells us with many examples. Hitler had his Hitler Youth. Stalin had the Komsomol, Young Pioneers, and Little Octobrists. Mao had his Red Guard. Kim Jung Un has the Korean Children’s Union. In order to change a country and oppress the population, the children must be taken first.
How do government take the children from loving parents? Governments start out doing everything for them and their families. First, they sell the idea of a community school with all the new, free services to the PARENTS who gladly take advantage of someone else taking over the care of their child. Parenting can be hard, frustrating work especially when Mom and Dad have to hold jobs during the day. With community schools, parents can work and never have to worry about doctor’s appointments, dental appointments, or any other services critical for their children. Designated strangers at school will take care of them. Why, parents won’t even have to give those snotty kids hugs when they are sick!
I said there were organizations who signed on to this idea. Blue Shield, the United Way, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and various hospitals have joined forces with the CDC, the United Nations and WHO to make this nightmare a reality.
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation: The foundation is named after Robert Wood Johnson, who took over Johnson and Johnson in 1910. You may recognize Johnson and Johnson, one of the companies that delivered a Covid 19 vaccine in 2020. The vaccine was found to cause blood clots. The foundation is led by Richard E. Besser, M.D. Here’s his short bio:
Before joining the Foundation, Dr. Besser served for eight years as chief health and medical editor for ABC News, and as a leader at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), where he worked for 13 years. He served as acting director of the CDC during the initial response to the H1N1 influenza pandemic.
Interesting connections there.
Blue Shield: This is formally known as Blue Shield of California, which tells you what you need to know. They are a medical insurance company, so what better way to increase the bottom line than by creating a money funneling system of community schools with built in health care. Someone has to make money off these federal subsidies!
The United Way: We have seen the signs up for this charity for years. We have one in our community that has been in the same place for years with a big thermometer to show donations. Have you ever looked at who their partners are? There are many. But here are some standouts:
The hospitals that are involved in these schools will be the ones in your local community. They will have a great pipeline to customers via that schools. With hospitals feeling the financial pinch since 2020, they will gladly welcome a new customer base of school children.
Of course, we all know the World Health Organization and their drive to control health care all over the world. Here is a link on their page about circumventing parental controls to give kids medical procedures:
The United Nations through UNICEF has established community schools across the globe where they implement gender ideology, restorative discipline, and state mandated vaccines.
If they can get schools in the United States to implement this model, they will run the table!
I once worked with an educator who predicted that someday, schools would have children from morning to night, feeding them breakfast, lunch and dinner. She even ventured a guess that kids would be housed at school. She seemed excited about the prospect of that happening.
But I wonder. Will parents gladly hand their children over to the government to be raised? Will they give up their parental rights at the altar of their own selfish desires for money or social activity? Will they not feel a pang in their hearts as they hand their precious children over to some stranger to feed them, clothe them, protect them? Will they feel the loss as their children grow up with strangers?
Evangelist Billy Graham said, “The family should be a closely knit group. The home should be a self-contained shelter of security; a kind of school where life’s basic lessons are taught; and a kind of church where God is honored; a place where wholesome recreation and simple pleasures enjoyed.”
And Max Lucado said, ” The highest privilege and purpose as a parent is to lead the child in the way of Christ.”
Let’s hope parents don’t give up that privilege and purpose. If they do our country is lost.
My children are grown and I will still fight for that privilege and purpose and will to my dying day.
Credit to Kelly Schenkoske for many of the sources and some of the ideas for this blog. You can read her articles at atimetostand.substack.com
Here is an interview with Kelly done by Tiffany Justice, Founder of Moms for Liberty
The Left’s Movement to Destroy Women’s Sports and Marginalize Women!
Support Maryland HB 359: Save Women’s Sports
PHOTO CREDIT: Jeffrey F Lin
by Jan Greenhawk, Editor and author of Radio Free Oxford
I’ll never forget the moment that my daughter took her first step onto a collegiate softball field. Playing at a Division One school was her goal for almost her entire life. Because of her smaller stature, she fought and outworked the predictions of many detractors, including a local coach or two, who said she would never be a collegiate athlete, much less a Division One athlete.
Yet, there she was. She wasn’t a walk on. She had been recruited to play softball at a great school!
She had many of the qualities of a great collegiate player, speed, good tracking, a great arm, good hand/eye coordination, strength, mental toughness and she could place hits where she wanted. But she didn’t have size, something many collegiate coaches look for. She overcame the one detriment to her resume with hard work.
Don’t get me wrong. There were some big girls that she played against and with. I believe they had one uniform at her school that would fit her because she was that small. It was always a bit daunting for me to watch while some 200-pound player was on a collision course with my daughter on the basepaths.
She played for four years. That in itself is a testimony to her commitment, desire, and mental stubbornness. Playing collegiate sports is not easy, especially when you care about your academics as well.
I wonder if she would even get the opportunity to play now with the blurred lines between those who are biological women and those who aren’t but are playing women’s sports anyway. Look at this testimony:
Listen to All-American Swimmer Riley Gaines Testify about Her Experience Competing Against Biological Male Turned Female Lia Thomas.
Gaines is an exceptional athlete. She is one of the best in the world and yet she couldn’t compete against a biological man turned female, “Lia” Thomas, who became a “female” after puberty. You can hear the pain in her voice as she shares that experience.
Gaines is a world class athlete. Imagine the plight of all the excellent, but not world class, female athletes in our country having to do the same. The results would be worse. In many cases they already have been.
Opportunities denied. Scholarships, honors, medals, Olympic experiences all gone in the name of some vile delusion that men can be women and that women can compete athletically against them.
Another video from a group called “Texas Values” talks not only about the unfair advantage Lia Thomas had over biological female athletes but how the NCAA took the “woke” and disgusting stance of choosing to honor a fake female over a real female athlete all for appearances:
If you watch the entire video, you will see other headlines from all over the country where trans females (males) are bumping women off the podium, and out of opportunity.
Normally, here is the part in my blog where I might make a statement that I truly feel for these transgender people, that they should have the right to compete, to pick their gender and compete as that gender as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else…and on and on.
I’m not going to do that. Why? Because unlike the Progressive leftists who screamed for women’s rights for years but have jumped on the transgender bandwagon, I’m not a hypocrite and I’m not willing to give up the rights women fought for. Female athletes are being removed from the award stands and erased from the record boards!
I’ll pray for and be civil and polite to these folks. But I’m not giving them an inch in this fight.
I was 17 when Title Nine passed. I was what was called a “tomboy” growing up. I loved running, jumping, riding horses and gymnastics. I wanted to go to the Olympics or be a rancher. My entire life I watched boys and men play professional sports while women sat on the sidelines. Collegiate sports for women were mainly activities played on back fields in front of no one. They were just there to keep the girls busy.
With Title Nine, we suddenly had a place on the field. It was too late for me to play anything more than a club sport in college. But I went into coaching gymnastics and softball and spent over thirty years coaching female athletes. I watched my daughter grow up in the 90’s playing sports for fun and eventually in college.
Women are now on the front fields, with crowds watching them, television coverage, even professional status.
The pink pussy hat crowd wants us to give that up for some kind of sick desire to adopt any aberrant cause to show how “inclusive” and “tolerant” they are. Funny how those two terms don’t apply to women who want to compete against other biological women under rules that are fair for all natural WOMEN.
We don’t need to go backward just to placate the minute population who want to defy nature, utilize an unfair advantage, and assuage their fragile, sick egos.
Not apologizing for any of that.
In Maryland, a bill has been proposed by Maryland Republicans headed by Delegate Szeliga and signed on by thirty -two other delegates which states there are two biological sexes, female and male determined by genetics and anatomy existing at birth. The bill requires:
AN INTERSCHOLASTIC OR INTRAMURAL JUNIOR VARSITY OR VARSITY ATHLETIC TEAM OR SPORT THAT IS SPONSORED BY A PUBLIC OR NONPUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL SHALL BE EXPRESSLY DESIGNATED AS ONE OF THE FOLLOWING BASED ON BIOLOGICAL SEX: (I) A BOYS, MALE, OR MEN’S TEAM OR SPORT; (II) A GIRLS, FEMALE, OR WOMEN’S TEAM OR SPORT; OR (III) A COEDUCATIONAL OR MIXED TEAM OR SPORT.
(2) AN INTERSCHOLASTIC OR INTRAMURAL JUNIOR VARSITY OR VARSITY ATHLETIC TEAM OR SPORT DESIGNATED FOR GIRLS, FEMALES, OR WOMEN MAY NOT INCLUDE STUDENTS OF THE MALE SEX.
(D) A GOVERNMENTAL ENTITY, A LICENSING OR ACCREDITING ORGANIZATION, OR AN ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION OR ORGANIZATION MAY NOT ACCEPT A COMPLAINT, CONDUCT AN INVESTIGATION, OR TAKE ANY OTHER ADVERSE ACTION AGAINST A SCHOOL OR COUNTY BOARD FOR MAINTAINING SEPARATE INTERSCHOLASTIC OR INTRAMURAL JUNIOR VARSITY OR VARSITY ATHLETIC TEAMS
Can you hear the pearl necklaces being clutched by GLSEN and other LGBTQ+ groups as they read this bill? Can you see them collecting with their syringes, chest binders and underwear packers to rush the state house? Do you hear them shrieking about (sigh), equity? Their myopic drive to get what they want is obliterating common sense and true fairness in competitive venues.
They will complain because the bill says there are two genders and requires that they don’t compete against each other unfairly. The same people who wanted pay equality for women and so-called reproductive rights are now ready to sell out the rights of over fifty percent of the population to appease 0.39%. (Data from: American Journal of Public Health, “Transgender Population Size in the United States: a Meta-Regression of Population-Based Probability Samples,” Esther L. Meerwijk, PhD and Jae M. Sevelius, PhD)
One may wonder why, if the number of transgenders is so small, women should be upset. After all, how many cases will there be? Remember the athlete called “Lia Thomas” mentioned in the video at the beginning of this article? Lia became a “woman” athlete after being a highly unsuccessful male athlete. Lia did this without cutting off any male genitalia. Lia found a way to be successful unfairly. Lia got accolades, publicity, and all the wonderful accoutrements surrounding “fame.” And Lia got to walk around naked with junk in full view of horrified female athletes. What a rush, right?
If you are a failed male athlete, you now have a freeway to success without drastic measures or too much effort. In today’s society of “me first” and “I am the center of the universe,” this will work for many. The naked presence in the locker room is just icing on the cake.
And it may not be such a rare occurrence either. Listen to another interview with Riley Gaines:
Riley Gaines addresses underreporting of men participating in women’s sports. Like she asks, ” How many women being pushed out is okay?”
Maryland House Bill 359 would fix this terrible situation, but it will probably be sabotaged, dead on arrival, or amended so much that it will be unrecognizable. It’s a noble effort, but the Progressives with their allegiance to gay/ trans PAC’s and Pharmaceutical lobbyists who promote the use of hormone blocking drugs and surgical procedures will no doubt send it to obscurity if we don’t speak out NOW!
If you are like me, you are probably wondering why Progressives would fight this bill.
In 2016 women were all about putting the misogynists in their place. Now it seems that women want misogynists to replace women. And, yes, I said they are misogynists. The definition of that word is someone who dislikes, despises, or is strongly prejudiced against women. You really have to hate women to deprive them of their achievements in order to feed your ego with undeserved accomplishments.
People promoting this outrage are blurring the lines of gender and they’re doing it on purpose. One of the ways that people can be oppressed is to convince them that they are not individuals but just members of a big collective with no unique talents, hopes, and dreams. If they feel they can’t compete, many will give up and sink to a life with no ambition or free will.
Marxists also love turning people against each other in a variety of ways, and this is just one more. If the collective says men can be women and compete against them, those who disagree will be ostracized. If women complain, they will be told to “work harder” or called “transphobes.”
If we can get people to deny God created gender of humans and virtually every other species on earth, we can get them to deny anything. Is it any surprise since these are the same people who support late term abortion by claiming a fetus is not a human? Or the people who want to force unsafe medical procedures and vaccines on children and adults saying “follow the science” when the actual science says these procedures and vaccines are not safe?
And let’s not forget that Pharmaceutical Companies, Hospitals, Health Insurance Companies and doctors make millions off these gender transition therapies and surgeries. We know how deep they have their hooks into our government officials.
Many of these people who fall for this gender deception have mental issues that need to be addressed professionally. Whether they think they are the wrong gender or are convinced people can choose their own gender, there is something wrong when one can deny the reality of nature right in front of their eyes.
We can only hope that the Maryland Legislature will take HB 359 seriously and pass it. Rational thinking needs to prevail. Monica Wright, retired NBA player in an article in THE PLAYERS’ TRIBUNE in 2017 (Why We Need Title IX Now More Than Ever (theplayerstribune.com)) quotes her basketball coach at the University of Virgnia, Debbie Ryan regarding the impact Title IX had on women’s sports:
“You guys are blessed,” she used to tell us. “The fancy locker room, the chartered planes … we didn’t have that when I was playing. We used to share a locker room with the softball team. We used to have to ride a bus when the men’s team would fly. We used to wash our own jerseys.”
And then the author adds:
I know there are those who think that Title IX isn’t important. Or that it hasn’t had that much of an impact. Well, for those people, here are a few numbers to consider. Since 1972, participation in women’s sports in high schools has increased 900%. That’s not a typo. Before Title IX, there were fewer than 30,000 NCAA female athletes. In 2012, that number was nearly 200,000. Just to top it off, in 2012, the United States sent more female than male athletes to the Olympics.
Do we really want to destroy all these gains in order to promote a political agenda?
I said this bill won’t stand a chance. You might think I am giving up. Not at all. Knowing the opposition we will face in the Maryland Legislature just makes me want to fight harder.
I’ll fight for all those women who, like my daughter, work and persevere every day to achieve their dreams without being stymied by opponents who have an unfair, biological advantage as stated in HB 359:
Men generally have “denser, stronger bones, tendons, and ligaments” and “larger hearts, greater lung volume per body mass, a higher red blood cell count, and higher hemoglobin.” Neel Burton, The Battle of the Sexes, PSYCHOL. TODAY (July 2,10 2012), https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hide–and seek/201207/the–battle–the–sexes; and WHEREAS, Men also have higher natural levels of testosterone, which affects traits such as hemoglobin levels, body fat content, the storage and use of carbohydrates, and the development of Type 2 muscle fibers, all of which result in men being able to generate higher speed and power during physical activity. Doriane Lambelet Coleman, Sex in Sport, 80 LAW AND CONTEMPORARY PROBLEMS 63, 74 (2017) (quoting Gina Kolata, Men, Women and Speed. 2 Words: Got Testosterone? N.Y. TIMES (Aug. 21, 2008)); and WHEREAS, The biological differences between females and males, especially as they relate to natural levels of testosterone, “explain the male and female secondary sex characteristics which develop during puberty and have lifelong effects, including those most important for success in sport: categorically different strength, speed, and endurance.” Doriane Lambelet Coleman and Wickliffe Shreve, “Comparing Athletic Performances: The Best Elite Women to Boys and Men,” Duke Law Center for Sports Law and Policy, https://web.law.duke.edu/sports/sex–sport/comparative–athletic–performance
If we don’t keep women’s sports for women, we will lose all the gains from 1972. I’m not willing to give up those gains. Not for anyone, for any reason!
Please write to your delegates and encourage them to support HB 359. Here’s how:
HB 359 – Save Women’s Sports Act sponsored by Delegate Kathy Szeliga and 32 Republican Delegates will have a hearing in the House Ways and Means Committee on Wed 2/15 at 1 p.m. To testify on this bill you must sign up on the General Assembly “MyMGA” account on their website at:
You will need to click on the “MyMGA” icon in the upper right-hand corner. From there, you can create an account. Once you create an account you can sign up to testify either in person, virtually, or in writing. You can only sign up during certain times, generally 48 hours prior to the hearing.
If you don’t want to testify, write to these members of the House Ways and Means Committee:
Progressives Oppose Parental Rights, Upcoming Maryland Legislation HB378 Should Change That
by Jan Greenhawk/Editor, Writer, Radio Free Oxford
Parental rights are for everyone. Let me repeat that. Parental rights are for everyone!
Parental rights are for all races, ethnicities, nationalities, genders, economic groups, sexual orientations, etc. No matter who the parent is, they have parental rights until they do something that legally changes their status as a parent.
Why is this important?
It’s important because the assumption is that the only people in this country advocating for parental rights are white, right-wing, upper middle class parents.
It’s important because the denial of a parent’s right to decide for his/her child is the beginning of the State takeover of a society. It has happened in every authoritarian country in history. And I don’t know anyone, conservative or progressive, who wants that.
Across the country, politicians and parent groups are proposing parental rights bills. Every time, it seems there are the same reactions. Conservatives support the bills; Progressives oppose them. Depending on the balance in state legislatures, these bills are either approved or defeated.
Sadly, people forget when these bills are proposed that they never state that one group gets parental rights while others don’t. Parental rights are for ALL PARENTS.
Since that’s true, what IS the problem with parental rights?
Maybe the problem is that all parents WILL get those rights and there are those who don’t want that. But who?
You don’t have to think very hard to answer that question. There are four groups who don’t want parental rights. They are school systems, government officials, teachers’ unions and even some teachers. Why?
In many cases, school systems don’t want to be bothered with parents. They don’t want to have to explain what they are doing and why they are doing it. And by explain, I mean give a REAL, RATIONAL explanation for programs, not some obscure platitude about helping kids feel good or think they are achieving when they are not. The money systems spend on programs that don’t work and have no foundation in good teaching is hard to justify to parents and taxpayers who see dismal test scores.
Questions parents ask may require officials to give some answers that show they either have no idea why they are doing something or that they have motives that have nothing to do with what is best for educating children. Often, the education administration will only have the answer, “Because the state/federal government says I have to.” Nothing like admitting that you are a powerless cog in the wheel.
Government officials, politicians, don’t want parental rights because these officials are control oriented. Not only are they interested in controlling and suppressing the population, but they also don’t want to give up the monetary control unions and special interest groups such as pharmaceutical companies give them. Controlling the lives of our children is big business for these special interest groups and they will pay millions in bribes to make sure control happens.
The Unions, of course, don’t want parental rights because the codification of these rights will expose the Unions for what they are; politically biased multi-billion-dollar enterprises whose sole purpose is to grow and maintain political power by courting certain groups and defaming others. One look at the National Education Association or American Federation of Teachers national webpages shows you the groups they care about and, by omission, the ones they don’t. They don’t hide it.
Parental rights laws will open up the unions to scrutiny of how their extensive assets are spent and the control they have over local, state and federal governments. (Hint: They don’t spend money on better education for children nor services for teachers)
And let’s not forget pharmaceutical companies who see our public-school children as another avenue to big profits. Parental rights stand in the way of their forcing vaccines and medical procedures on children who don’t need them and don’t have the mental capacity to consent.
You may wonder how that works. How do pharmaceutical companies make sure that they have control over school children and make millions?
We have an example right here in Montgomery County, Maryland. The Senator’s name is Cheryl Kagan and she is proposing SB 378. It is currently under first reading in the State Senate in the Finance Committee. ( Ironic, isn’t it?)
Senate Bill 378 is the bill, and it will allow minors aged 14 or younger to consent to a vaccination without the approval or even knowledge of a parent. Here’s the bill:
It’s interesting that this bill not only allows minors 14 or even younger to make decisions about vaccinations, decisions they do not have the mental capacity or knowledge to make, but it also provides a liability shield for those doctors, staff, caregivers and drug companies who promote and give the vaccines. That means in the event that a child is irreparably harmed or dies because of the vaccine, no one involved in the process to provide it to them will have any legal responsibility.
One wonders why officials would need a liability shield if children are competent to make this decision and/or if the vaccines are safe. We know why. They know that neither of these are true and no one wants to be sued when the inevitable happens.
This bill gives the adults who potentially have authority over a child in school or other settings, not the parent, the right to decide if the child is competent or not. There won’t be any coercion, right? Sadly, we know there will be.
What’s next? Minors deciding on gender reassignment therapies or surgery? Minors deciding to sell their organs? Take a look at what California has done. Where California goes, Maryland follows:
Senator Kagan and Pharmaceutical Companies will make a lot of money when they have a captive, willing population to be subjected to their vaccines and procedures. And if a few kids have to be harmed or die along the way, oh well. Greater good, right? Not if it’s your child.
With a parental rights bill in place, Senator Kagan’s bill would never see the light of day.
There are also teachers who fight tooth and nail against parental rights. For them, it is an issue of having to listen to a parent who objects to what and how their child is being taught. It means providing alternative lessons and, in some cases, exposing the fact that a teacher may be teaching something not in the approved curriculum, like gender ideology or political activism. It might also mean exposing a teacher who isn’t working at all, who has nefarious motives or who is incompetent. This is what happened during pandemic lockdowns when children were restricted to online classes.
Surprisingly, there are even parents who fight parental rights. Why would they fight against power they could have over their own child’s education and medical decisions? Some fight because they have been led to believe that parental rights are NOT for them. They believe that parental rights are against children. It couldn’t be any further from the truth. Parental rights laws give ALL parents the right to know and object to what is happening to their child. After all, is there any parent who doesn’t want to protect their child from actions that are harmful? Does it matter to ANY parent who is the source of those actions? I don’t think so.
Parental rights are not a panacea. There are always bumps in the road when we consider the rights of everyone, not just a few.
What happens if there are conflicts between what some parents want versus others? This will happen. When it does, those conflicts will have to be resolved via discussion and compromise. Isn’t that what mature adults do when they disagree? If not, it should be. But one’s rights should not be trampled by the whims of another or even by the majority. Accommodations will have to be made.
Parents can’t know everything going on with their child throughout the day at school. Even with “opt outs” there will be lessons and teachers’ opinions that children will be exposed to that parents may not agree with but will never know about. Most children don’t come home and tell Mom and Dad everything that happens in the school day.
School systems say that parental rights will cause classrooms and teachers to be overrun with parents who want things done their way. This is a red herring argument since most parents are too busy working and running households to come to parent conference nights, much less to hang out at the classroom door to micromanage teachers.
Having the process available for parents to see curriculum and to give input to teachers on issues they find important is vital to home and school cooperation. This cooperation helps our students do better academically and emotionally. Teachers should be a willing to participate in parental rights as families. After all, it will help them do their jobs better. Judging from recent Maryland test scores, they need that help.
Parental rights will allow you to go in and ask what is happening with your child in terms of counseling, academics, medical treatment, discipline, etc. without having to submit expensive Freedom of Education Act inquiries or engage an expensive lawyer. Schools and other entities will start to view parents as valued, respected partners.
Parental rights will be there as the guardrail that will keep schools and governments from running rough shod over the beliefs, rights and values of parents and students. In many ways it will protect our precious young people from those who wish to manipulate or exploit them. Parents and guardians, the people who love them the most, will be able to stand guard.
Which is why I don’t understand why Progressives, who want to be seen as champions of protecting those who they see as vulnerable, aren’t joining in the parental rights cause.
Because parental rights will protect them and their children also.
Proverbs 22:6 says: “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.”
SIDE NOTE: A Parental Rights Bill is in the works in Maryland. One was drafted last year but was soundly rejected. Maybe this year…
Jan can be reached at jan417@radiofreeoxford.com
Jan is a retired teacher and a current Chapter Chair for Moms for Liberty, Talbot
